Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Category: PlayStation 2 Game
Console: PlayStation 2 (Download Emulator)
Format: CHD
Developer: Core Design
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Series: Tomb Raider
Genre: Action / Adventure
Mode: Single-player
Region: NTSC
Views: 1,648,365
Downloads: 787,568
Released: 20 June 2003
File Size: 2.2 GB
Rating: 4.0/5 (532 votes)
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is a 2003 action-adventure game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. A Mac OS X port was developed by Beenox and published by Aspyr the same year. It is the sixth instalment in the Tomb Raider series, acting as a direct sequel to Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999) and Tomb Raider: Chronicles (2000).
The storyline follows Lara Croft as she attempts to clear herself of being the suspect of her former mentor Werner Von Croy's murder while investigating the activities of a black magic cult. The gameplay follows series tradition, with Lara navigating platforming environments while incorporating stealth and character growth elements.
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, like previous Tomb Raider games, is a third-person action-adventure puzzle game. Players control the main series protagonist Lara Croft throughout the majority of the game.
The majority of Lara's basic moves are carried over from the previous instalment, such as walking, jumping, climbing, swimming, crawling, swinging on ropes and standard gunplay. Her new moves include a small hop, army-crawling, hand-to-hand combat and a "super-jump" that can be performed while running.
Lara can also sneak up on enemies and perform stealth attacks, flatten herself against walls and peer around corners. Lara's ability to sprint, present in the three previous entries in the series, is only available when the player opens a cabinet containing gas masks in the 'Galleries Under Siege' level. Her weapons arsenal is also modified from previous games, featuring new weapons such as a K2 Impactor stun gun and upgraded versions of weapons like the shotgun.
Unlike previous games in the series, Lara has a stamina meter that depletes while she is performing bouts of climbing: if the bar empties before reaching her destination, she falls. The rate at which the meter decrease slows if the player performs special actions that increase Lara's strength. These actions are also necessary to progress through many of the levels.
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness received strong initial sales, mostly driven by an aggressive advertising campaign. The game reached 6th place in the UK Top 20 sales charts, but dropped to 13th by the following week.
The game's PlayStation 2 version received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. It eventually went on to sell 2.5 million copies.
According to Metacritic, which calculated an average score of 52 and 49 for the PlayStation 2 and Windows version respectively, the game received "mixed or average reviews" and "generally unfavorable reviews".
Reviewers praised the game's storyline, graphics, sound, and environments, while they criticised its large number of bugs and system requirements and its poor controls, combat system, and camera movement. Gaming magazine Game Informer gave it 5.5/10, while PlayStation Official Magazine rated it 8/10.
The game's story received positive reviews. IGN's Douglas C. Perry praised its "compelling storyline" and "set of intriguing bit characters", while GameSpot's Greg Kasavin praised the story as "interesting", expressing surprise that it did not earn a higher ESRB rating.
